


barking up trees

by halfwheeze



Series: Ironhusbands Bingo 2019 (Round 1) [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Allusions to smut, M/M, No Dialogue, POV Tony Stark, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Tony Stark, Protective Bucky Barnes, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, nsfw themes and references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-29 15:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20799092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfwheeze/pseuds/halfwheeze
Summary: tony has been in love with james rhodes for over twenty years.bucky has been in love with sam wilson for a while shorter than that.they're both still hurting the same way.





	barking up trees

**Author's Note:**

> SamBucky Bingo Square B4: Being Lonely!  
Ironhusbands Square B5: Rejection!

Lonely. Empty. Nothing. Maybe that’s why it happens. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe it doesn’t matter. 

It’s an accident the first time. He thinks it is. He didn’t mean for things to go like this. He didn’t mean for any of this to happen. 

The soft press of lips. The comforting weight of hands. A sweet lick after the sharp bite that left a welt on his neck. Bruises that last for days. Super soldier strength thrown around like nothing. Getting thrown around like nothing. Feeling like something, for once. Feeling something, for once. It happens through flashes in the background of his daydream memory, even if he knows it was real for the metal fingertip bruises lacing themselves around his thighs. He doesn’t remember if either of them said a single word throughout the first time. He doesn’t remember if it mattered. 

He’s not what Bucky wants. Bucky isn’t what he wants. It’s never mattered. 

Loving someone for more than half of your life, knowing that they don’t feel the same, does that to a person. 

He supposes that loving someone who doesn’t love you back for any amount of time does that. Bucky is proof enough of that. 

Biting kisses always leave Bucky begging for more. He gives more of them away like candy on Halloween, even if it’s just so that he won’t have to be alone again. He thinks Bucky knows that. 

Rhodey doesn’t look at the bruises Bucky leaves. He doesn’t know whether to feel angry or viciously proud of that. He wears them like battlefield display case either way, wears them like war medals. Waits for how heavy they feel against his throat when Pepper notices them. Keeps showing them anyway. 

There is nothing of him for Sam Wilson to see. Instead, it’s Bucky’s arm around his shoulders, almost like they’re actually together, and he allows it. He doesn’t mind all of the ways that Bucky aches the same way that he does. Even if Sam is his friend too, he’s willing to play this part for Bucky. 

Steve Rogers looks concerned in the background, but that’s not really Tony’s responsibility. He just keeps Bucky together. 

Even the Widow looks with disapproval. It’s not her business either. He turns his face into Bucky’s neck and feels a high of power that the Winter Soldier trusts him with the hollow of his throat. 

Tony doesn’t know when all he became was bitterness, but sometimes, Bucky takes the worst out of it. Sometimes, it’s just barely liveable. 

He knows that Rhodey has never looked at him like that. He knows that he never will. 

Bucky knows the same things about Wilson. 

Everyone has coping mechanisms. If Tony’s involve Bucky’s bare skin, his bare words, his inner bar fight, his swinging fists and the way that he’s only tamed when Tony’s catches them in his own, when Bucky is a  _ threat,  _ well, that’s fine. If they need to destroy each other a little to make the world a better place to live in, that’s fine. No one else is getting hurt, right? It’s fine. 

And if sometimes, Bucky just needs to be held, and Tony holds him, that’s okay too. Sometimes, he leans against Rhodey’s side with Bucky’s head in his lap, and wonders if this is far from being set completely on fire. If he lets Bucky fuck his mouth, hard and raw and  _ slow,  _ that night, well, no one else has to know. If he lets Bucky hold him down until he cries that night, no one else has to know. 

Maybe Tony’s raw voice and the bruises on his wrists speak for themselves, but no one asks. No one is brave enough. 

He doesn’t think it will hurt when Rhodey starts dating Sam, but it does. He can tell that it hurts Bucky too, but only because Bucky wants things slow, calm, nearly chaste, after. He always wants to hold Tony when things are too hard. 

Tony wants to explode, but he lets Bucky have this. 

Maybe it’s what they both deserve for a while. Something careful, something soft. 

Bucky nearly fucks him through the wall the very next day. 

He has a full dental imprint of one Bucky Barnes, clear as day on the side of his neck, the day he gets kidnapped by HYDRA. They keep him in a state of conscious-not-conscious, a nebulous nothing that feels like everything. He thinks that he asks for Rhodey. Does it matter? He knows that Rhodey doesn’t come. Rhodey won’t come. This is the second time that Tony has gone down, the second time that he’s been captured, and Ross won’t let Rhodey out of his sight again. 

Bucky comes. Guns blazing and beautiful eyes like black holes of anger, he comes alone. Tony doesn’t ask how many people he kills. He doesn’t want to know. He climbs into Bucky’s arms instead, hangs off of him like it’s where he belongs, and maybe it is. Bucky holds him just the same way, cradles him close and keeps him safe. More people die on their way out, but Tony isn’t paying them any mind. He holds onto Bucky instead. He holds onto the right now. Holds onto the end. 

But it’s not the end. Of course it isn’t. When Rhodey comes to visit his hospital room, it hurts a little less. He brings Sam with him and Bucky curls around Tony’s back like a particularly protective anaconda. Tony sinks into it. 

He sees the creases at Sam Wilson’s eyes. He sees the way that he almost-wants, the way that he knows what he’s missing. Tony holds onto what is his with both hands and avoids showing his teeth by a narrow margin. He doesn’t have to intimidate Sam Wilson. Sam Wilson already has what was once Tony’s, and Bucky will not be his. He’s already gone through this. Even if Sam Wilson knows not what he has taken, he won’t be doing it again. Even if Sam Wilson can steal the love of Tony’s life right out from beneath his nose, he won’t take Bucky. Bucky came for  _ him.  _

Bucky  _ cares.  _

Tony hadn’t realised how much that mattered to him before it literally saved his life. 

Maybe it’s not healthy, but Tony knows what is his, and he’s pretty damn protective of what is. Bucky, for all of his broken pieces, for all of the ways that he comes apart at the seams if Tony isn’t around to stitch him back together, is  _ his.  _

And he would dare anyone to try to make that different. 

**Author's Note:**

> Um. Writing this hurt me more than it hurt you? 
> 
> Kudos and comment! 
> 
> Yell at me @primekent on tumblr.


End file.
